Achieving the Health Equity Agenda Through Transformative Community-Engaged Strategies

Details

• Journal Article:
  Preventing Chronic Disease (PCD)
• Personal Author:
  Gilbert, Keon L. ; Shaw, Mary ; Siddiqi, Arjumand ; Goodman, Melody S.
• Description:
  Achieving health equity is a realistic vision. However, the process, goals, metrics, and strategies needed to provide access to resources for all citizens are not truly aligned with American values and traditions (1). The current vision for health equity is being neutralized because racism is the root of health inequalities and is deeply embedded in our approaches to solving health challenges (2,3). One of the primary strategies public health has developed is to engage communities experiencing disproportionate rates of illness and lower life expectancy. The main question for us to wrestle with is, has community engagement realized its full potential to move the field toward achieving health equity? This question has been relevant since the adoption of community engagement strategies, as they have been framed in public health as community-based participatory research (CBPR) approaches. The field of public health adopted CBPR nearly 3 decades ago as an alternative paradigm to understand the complexity of health challenges and to develop strategies for health promotion change that explicitly included communities as equal decision makers. The COVID-19 pandemic documented the challenges of community relationships between public health agencies, research institutions, and health care facilities. Communities that are disengaged from decision making about their health lack trust and respect for these organizations charged with preventing disease and enhancing health. To move into a new generation of health promotion and health equity, we pose 2 questions and provide some direction toward answering them: 1) What more can CBPR do to become a leading paradigm to help achieve equity in health outcomes? and 2) How can CBPR prevent itself from becoming a gatekeeper to social and structural change?
• Subjects:
  Health Equity
• Source:
  Prev Chronic Dis. 2023; 20
• DOI:
  http://dx.doi.org/10.5888/pcd20.230077
• ISSN:
  1545-1151
• Pubmed ID:
  37943729
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC10684278
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Genre:
  Essay
• Volume:
  20
• Collection(s):
  Preventing Chronic Disease
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:c77fbc2a5cbe61dbf7f99c8f1522321bf6fa8124a37e7af69517ae6566097da98e1b926fa79b937edca58088ec587e89ddf61250da0ecd02c73879d80cd3ece0
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/151128/cdc_151128_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 327.59 KB ]